I’m trying to finish some of the bigger pieces that I’ll have to haul back to Portland in the car. I don’t have nice containers to hold them as wet paintings, like the ones I have for the smaller pieces, so this week is the last I can spend on the monsters.

I painted the Barrick Open Pit Vat Leach mine today — yesterday I did it plein air and today I tweaked it a bit. It’s 18 x 36, so needs to be dry before we leave. Or at least relatively dry:

This is a small spoof on the Goldwell Sculptures. Shorty is the miner at the far left, who is leaving the area. His sculpture was “Tribute to Shorty Harris” and he’s tired of being a tribute. The flying creature was on the telephone poles at the far right and was and is called “Icara” after Icarus, who crashed and burned. Icara, being female, is smarter than Icarus, but she too was tired of being stuck up on a pole. The other characters are likewise (gentle) send-ups of the sculptures here. This is the second one of these I tried — the first has been deleted — it was larger and worser.

I think the major Rhyolite (ghost town) and Sculpture Setting painting is completely done. I did one other that got turned to the wall in disgrace. But this one is a keeper.

Rhyolite and the Goldwell Open Air Museum, 18 x 36″, oil on board.

The Red Barn, where my studio is, is at the bottom left. And yes, the spaces are this wide and the distances this vast. I only regret that I haven’t captured it even better. It’s about half a mile from the Red Barn to the Pink lady (“Desert Venus”), the first sculpture in the Goldwell Museum. –June

3 Responses to Enough of the Tour —

oohing over one doesn’t mean I dislike the others! Re the Rhyolite one: I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me it’s the almost-aerial view and mountains that look alive and the snakey roads; it’s like a cross between a mythical landscape and a topographical map (and I adore maps heh). I like your Goldwell spoof too, partly because it reminds me of the crows & dragons.

FWIW, I figured out what was giving me pause about the Bullfrog one; the pole on the left. I don’t know why, esp since I often put a strong vertical on the left myself, but I reckon it detracts in this case, flattens somehow – as soon as I cover that, the terraced hill pops.

Thanks, Sion. I have revised the Barrick Bullfrog mine, with a vengeance. It probably won’t make you ooo and aaaa, but it certainly made me feel better. The Rhyolite painting is a lot of people’s favorites. I’m pleased, because it was my second try.